The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
